ic Interceptors: Doktor-Patient Confidentiality

[Gizmo]

The Amber Lantern

Sunday, December 1, 2024

 

The repurposed beer mug-turned-light fixture that served as its primary signage was the bar’s only real distinguishing feature. Not old enough to be historical, no novel gimmick or theming, The Amber Lantern was nothing more nor less than a place to get an anonymous drink in Freedom City’s west side.

 

Being a few blocks out of the West End proper and into Lantern Hill was another point in its favour in this case, so far as Erik Espadas was concerned. A bit petty, perhaps but he felt justified as he stepped inside the dimly lit watering hole. He wore a weathered jacket with a wool lining over a plain white shirt, dusty  brown hair a little longer in the colder months, blending into a neat beard. He took in the other people in the room with a carefully casual glance before heading to a booth in the far corner and silently sat down across from the man waiting for him.

[Dr Archeville]

This is fine.  This is fine.  This is fine.  This is fine.

 

The man in the booth was unremarkably plain, a white man in his early 30s with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a slightly wrinkled plain white long-sleeved button down shirt.  He looked much like any other low-level office worker who might come here to obliterate the memories of their daily drudgery with cheap alcohol.  But to Erik's metamagi senses, he shone like nothing else in there, giving off low levels of infrared and radio waves, and with far more electricity coursing through his nervous system than would be recommended.

 

"Well," Viktor Archeville said after a long pause, with only a slight hint of a German accent, "I knew it would only be a matter of time before one of us reached out to the other.  So," he placed his hands on the table and laced his fingers together, "what do we do now?"

 

[Gizmo]

“If we’re honest, I put it off,” Erik replied, leaning back and lying one arm across the back of the booth. Without really meaning to he put a little emphasis on the words to give it a note of challenge, of question. *If* they were being honest. Not a given.

 

His mouth tightened in self reproach; he tried to put it down to the potpourri of frequencies rolling off of Archeville registering like too much cologne, if cologne was made of nervous bees.

 

”You adjusting to being back in the city?” It would have made more sense to ask how he was adjusting to being back on Earth but they both knew that wasn’t the part that mattered. Erik could have asked Lynn for updates since he and Archeville had last seen each other but he hadn’t. It had been a long time since he and Lynn had been close like that, much longer from her perspective. He thought about Bill, passing away in another world and leaving him family behind. Erik’s mouth tightened again.

[Dr Archeville]

Archeville shifted a bit uncomfortably in his side of the booth.  He knew the man before him was Jack of all Blades, renowned hero, member of the Interceptors.  He remembered working with the Interceptors, gathering them together, supporting them, guiding them.  And the horrific betrayals.  His still remembered all of that, but his memories of their secret identities, their civilian lives, those had all been wiped.  He could re-learn them, if a hero deemed him worthy, same as with anyone else.  But those gaps in his memories -- which he'd had agreed were necessary, and had fully consented to having erased -- still 'itched' a bit.

 

"As well as can be expected for someone who was off-world for four years," he replied, smiling in a way that wasn't too forced.  "The familiar sights and sounds and smells have been nice, but seeing how... earthbound so many people here are, how fearful and fractured and..."  He trailed off, shaking his head.  Keep it light, Viktor.

 

"Lynn's made me feel very welcome," he pivoted slightly, "and I think she's welcomed the company.  Though I feel I am stretching her hospitality too far, and should get my own place.  But is it worth it to establish my own home if I might get whisked back to where I was before, as abruptly as I was sent here?"  He shrugged, and let out an exasperated grunt.  "Then again, most people don't know what the future holds, and they go about their lives, so maybe I should just... get on with it."

 

[Gizmo]

“Yeah, &#!% sucks,” Erik responded dryly as Viktor trailed off. It wasn’t the showboating, rapid-fire verbal gymnastics he remembered through the veil of obfuscated memories of the younger swordsman but there was still a note of performance. He’d seen what Erik looked like when he was genuinely, viscerally angry.

 

The scientist’s musing on the utility of building a place for himself or not, however gave Erik genuine pause. He realized that he still thought of Viktor as a builder, someone who brought people together and made a place for them. More than that, though he realized the gulf between what had become of Viktor and the family and community he’d surrounded himself with over the years.

 

He opened his mouth for a moment before finding the words, falling back into a bit of irreverence to make the rawness of feeling a little more palatable. “You really microwaved your brain about it, huh? How much did you keep? About all of us?”

[Dr Archeville]

"With the level of skill and effort involved, I would say 'finely diced and sauteed' rather than 'microwaved'," he replied, again flashing the not-too-forced grin, "and, full disclosure, while I did fully consent to it -- recommended it, even -- the actual procedures were performed by a team of others.  Miss Americana, owing to her experience with both neurology and biological-technological interfaces.  Scarab, to run a full psychic 'sweep and clear'.  Phantom, to make sure there was no lingering mystical infiltration, and to catch anything Miss Americana or Scarab might have missed.  And Dragonfly, coordinating and overseeing the entire brain-altering operation."

 

He paused a moment, though whether it was to let Erik fully absorb that info, or because he was reliving part of the experience, was a toss-up.  "I had all memories of superhero secret identities removed, from my own mind and all my computer systems.  I still remember you, Jack," he nodded, "and the other Interceptors.  Recruiting the initial team, the adventures we'd had.  How the team broke up, but reformed, under your keen leadership, and went further than I'd hoped.  The good that we," he looked down a moment, then up again, "the good that we had done.  And the horrific acts that the thing inside me had done.   The thousands killed, the countless others..."  He stopped himself, took a breath, continued, "those memories are all clear as any other, as my recollection of what I had for breakfast yesterday.  But I've no idea who you are, when you're not... Jack.  I know that we'd spent time together, off-duty, that I had done so with all the Interceptors.  Christmases, birthdays, weddings.  But all those memories are... fuzzy, muffled, vague.  And what I do recall of you and the others in those memories is you all fully in costume, referring to each other by your heroic names."

 

He paused again, "it was not a perfect solution. But it seemed the best option."

 

[Gizmo]

Erik didn’t bother to interrupt Viktor’s itemized clarification. Of course he already knew who’d been involved in the mnemonic surgery and in what capacity but the other man no longer knew that Dragonfly was his sister-in-law, that he’d traded babysitter recommendations with Phantom, that Miss Americana… was also basically his sister-in-law. Erik didn’t really ever talk to Scarab if he could help it but that was because of personal ties not the lack thereof. All the connections that made the difference between simple utility and a life lived with other people in it.

 

With a discontented grunt he raised a hand over his head to catch the attention of the wait staff. “Told myself I wasn’t going to order anything in case you got here first and spiked it with nanobots or whatever but I’m going to need a drink after all.”

[Dr Archeville]

Viktor opened his mouth slighlty, as if to say something in response to Jack's comment, closed it, then quietly reached into his back pocket and brought forth what appeared to be a stainless steel whiskey flask, with a stylized 'A' engraved on it.  "The only drinks I'd be adding anything to," he swirled the flask around, and Jack could hear a sloshing sound, "are my own."

 

Erik knew about that, too.  How Viktor's body was now as much technology as it was biology, and required certain metals and other substances -- most of them highly toxic to other Earthly life -- as 'nutritional supplements'.  That was probably mercury sloshing around in his flask.

 

He returned the flask to his back pocket, then laid both hands on the table, palms down.  "So... how is the team?"